


If I Can Get Through This (I can do anything).

by Alexander_Slamilton



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gay Panic, M/M, Not angsty, Semi-Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-10 23:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18418163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Slamilton/pseuds/Alexander_Slamilton
Summary: "I have seen the truest evil of the human race, and it’s best creations, but none of that matters to me. None of it. Because you are sitting here in front of me"Dean Winchester realises he likes boys in the summer of 1995 in Bessemer, Alabama.Dean realises he likes Cas in the summer of 2014 in Lebanon, Kansas.





	1. LaGrange GA. (1993).

It’s raining in LaGrange, Georgia, as Dean walks back to the motel, His dad had actually picked Sam up from his school but of course he’d had to go hunting so Dean’s left to trudge back through the storm. The wire chainlink fence by the side of the road is rusting, and the litter on the other side of it rots quietly away as Dean does his best to avoid the foul smelling plastic bags. He’s soaked through, of course, and what little school work he’d actually bothered with will be ruined by the time he gets back to the motel. It doesn’t matter anyway, as soon as his dad is done with whatever it is he’s hunting, they’ll move and Dean will never have to see the shitty brick façade of Callaway Middle School ever again. 

“Dean Winchester?” A car pulls up beside him, “what’re you doing walking home in this? Couldn’t you get the bus?” 

“Oh,” he says, stopping, and facing his history teacher. “None of the buses go the way I need them to.” He shrugs, “my dad had to pick up my brother so I thought I’d walk.” 

“Well, hey, where are you going to?” The teacher asks, Dean wracks his brain the woman’s name, he can hear the radio coming from her car; the music is quiet beneath the noise from the rain. It’s cold, and Dean had to stay for detention so it’s going to get dark soon, he’d rather not be out in the rain and dark with whatever it is that’s on the loose. 

“Uh, actually, Mrs Esmund, that would be great. I was heading to the Lark Motel,” he shifts, waiting for the pity or the anger that normally came when he confessed he lived in a motel. 

“Okay, well hop right in then,” she unlocks the door, Dean tests her by sliding in the front passenger seat. She just smiles and gives him an exasperated look, “You know, Dean, you really remind me of me when I was your age.” Dean gives her a look, this woman was wearing a cardigan. Dean couldn’t see how they were even slightly alike. “My family, we moved around a lot, never staying in one place too long, so I figured that meant I could slack off. Hell, it’s not like detentions carry through from school to school right, well, when I was fifteen my dad died. And suddenly we were thrust in to foster care, and then I realised that I was staying in one place. You know, that was scary, and the permanence of it, well, I decided that maybe I could give it a proper go. The whole life thing, maybe I could make something of it. So, I actually put in some effort, tried in a few classes; then that became getting into some AP classes and that became getting into Duke. And, Dean, that was only after my Sophomore year of high school; imagine what I could have done if I’d given a rat’s ass at your age. You have all the time in the world, you’re still in middle school, when you get to high school, that’s when things become real.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean mutters, sinking into the cheap plastic leather seat of the car, “I’m never going to college anyway.” 

“You think you’re not smart enough,” Mrs Esmund nods, “well in the one test you bothered to study for in my class, Dean, you got an A+. Now tell me, how a kid who is not smart, can get an A+ in a quiz on local history? Especially when he’s only been in town, three weeks?” 

“I got an A+?” Dean turns to her, “are you sure? You gotta be making a mistake,” he laughs. It must have been the research he’d done for his dad the night before. He had been so tired during that test, he can’t even remember not trying. 

“I’m not,” she shakes her head, “I think that makes you pretty damn smart, no matter what you think about yourself. If you tried, if you really tried, when you get to high school you could easily go to college. And a great one at that.” 

“Sure,” Dean snorts, they’re pulling up to the highway that leads to the motel, if Dean’s lucky, his dad won’t be home. 

“Look,” Mrs Esmund says softly, “please, don’t waste that mind you got. You’re really smart Dean, and you’re funny, and most importantly you have a kind heart. You know you have it all, and you could really make something of yourself if you bothered.” She takes her eyes off the road for a minute. And that’s all it takes. She doesn’t notice the semi that’s spun out of control in front of them, the rain is pouring down and it’s getting dark. The car goes into the back of the truck, hard, and Dean has no time to think.


	2. Heaven, ???. (????).

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Castiel watches as the car slams into the back of the truck, he has seen so many futures, pasts, and presents, but he knows that this was not supposed to happen. 

“Often,” his father sighs, “fate changes her mind.”

“What should I do?” Castiel has never spoken to his father before. He trembles from the power of the being standing before him, but he also knows so much love, boundless amounts of it. He is blessed. 

“Go to him,” his father orders. 

“Yes, father,” and Castiel goes.


	3. LaGrange, GA. (1993).

Dean wakes up in a hospital room. It’s white and as far as he can tell, empty, apart from the beeping machines next to him. Though his eyes are still trying to focus, everything is a blur. He chokes around a pipe that runs down his throat and, panicking a whole lot, tries to sit up. Only to get pushed down as a nurse runs into the room. 

“You’re okay,” the nurse tells him, “you’re in Wellstar West Georgia Medical Center. We’ll get that tube out in just a moment.” 

Finally, after a lot of pain and a glass of water, Dean can talk. He’s still not allowed to sit up though, and he can already feel the restlessness prickling under his skin. 

“Look, Dean, you have seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured wrist, your right femur is broken in three places, your left is broken in a pretty nasty way, not to mention the fact that you have fractured your skull as well. It’s a miracle you’ve woken up at all, there is no way we can let you sit up.” The doctor finally loses his cool the twenty-eighth time Dean asks to sit up. 

“What about Mrs Esmund?” Dean asks, just as the doctor turns to walk out the door. 

“Just,” he sighs, closing his eyes in the way that adults did when Dean said or did something wrong, “just wait for your father to get here.”


	4. Sioux Falls, SD. (2010).

Looking back on it, as Dean does, years later in the yard at Singer Salvage that’s really when the guilt started to set it. All consuming. Demanding to be felt, the blame had smouldered away in Dean for years. It isn’t that he could have done anything to save his history teacher that day, it’s more the thought of the fact that he didn’t die himself. It’s an awful, hateful, ugly thought. But it’s there. Growing inside him like a disgusting cancer, not the kind that can be cut out. He feels it when he sells his soul for Sam, or when he lets yet another monster rip into his body so someone else can get away. Dean feels the guilt all the time. It never leaves. Like some sort of spectre, always with him, haunting him. Sometimes, when he’s knocked unconscious he sees the semi headed towards him, he can smell the oil and engine fumes and the iron like the tang of blood. He thinks about all of this sat on his ass on a bonnet, looking up at the stars as best as the light pollution from Sioux Falls will let him.

_“You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”_

“I don’t,” Dean whispers to no one in particular. He remembers every detail of that night. The way Castiel’s hair was tousled. How the bullets tore through his shirt. His flesh giving way below the blade of Dean's knife. The way the angel pulled the knife out. Dean remembers everything. He remembers the guilt, turning into an inferno. Why should it have been him the angel chose to pull out of hell. Why not any one of the countless individuals that had been sent there.

“Because none of them are you,” Castiel appears by him, standing a few meters away. “I fell for you, I have killed my brothers for you, I have defied the will of my father. And I did all of it for you. And do not for a moment feed the monster that’s the guilt in your stomach, thinking you do not deserve it. Because, Dean Winchester, I have never known another more deserving. Good things do happen.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean snorts, taking a sip of his warm beer.

“Yes,” Castiel says, moving closer to him. “You think that you are undeserving of happiness, you think that you are grotesque, no better than the monsters you hunt. But I have known true evil, I have stared it in the face. I have seen the turning of the Earth for countless millennia, and I have never seen anything more brilliant than your soul.”

“Cas-“ Dean croaks, but he cannot turn his eyes away from Cas’s face, he is glued to the spot atop the bonnet.

“I watched the Earth come into being. I cried as Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. I followed your earliest ancestors out of Africa and watched as civilisation bloomed there, as art was created there. I felt the flint people used to make tools with, I held it in my own hands. I was there as the people built Stonehenge using trees and rope. I watched as in, Australia, people, walked in Dreamtime. I celebrated the building of the pyramids, and the making of the terracotta army, the calendars in South America. I wandered the onsen in Japan and marvelled at the heat in the water. I danced to the Dong Song drums and then, wept as the library of Alexandria burned, and the streets of Teotihuacan were emptied. I have seen the might of the Roman Empire and have also seen it crushed under the weight of its own power. I watched as people in India and the Middle East unlocked the secrets of the universe. I saw time after time human beings fascinated by creating circles out of the earth, and I watched as you people did terrible things to each other. I gazed on in horror each time you tried to kill each other.

I have seen the truest evil of the human race, and it’s best creations, but none of that matters to me. None of it. Because you are sitting here in front of me,” Castiel stops, and it is just then that Dean realises how old and how very not human he is. “You turned me from the very purpose I was created for. You. Not Sam. Not my father. You. And I have been told all my life that falling is painful. That our wings burn and all we know is fire. Yet, I have not felt that. All I have felt is an all-encompassing love. Tell me, if you are so evil, how could that be the case?”

“I- I-“ Dean can’t seem to work his brain. It has obviously suffered a major malfunction, and now no longer knows what words are. He is scrambling to reignite the guilt inside of him, to remember how the pain he had become so used to feels.

“I was there,” Cas says, moving closer again. So close that Dean could almost reach out and touch him. “That day.”

“What?” Dean looks up at the blue eyes, still bright even in the gloom of night.

“I was there when your teacher died.”

“You were?” Dean stiffens.

“I was. My father spoke to me for the second and last time that day,” Cas looks like he wants to reach out and touch Dean, but he also looks like he’s determined to stop himself from doing so. “He told me that fate had changed her mind, that we were to meet before our previous time. I think,” he sighs, “I think that is why your soul knew me when I pulled you from hell. I have been watching over you since you were fourteen years old.”

“You never showed me,” Dean says, shakily, running a hand through his hair.

“No, I didn’t,” Castiel nods, jerking his head up, “I thought it would be better if I were a silent observer. It wasn’t until I had pulled you from hell that I decided to show myself.”

“Why?” Dean asks though he thinks he already knows the answer.

“At first I was simply obeying my father, or I thought I was, but then I realised he didn’t give a damn what I did. Then I was scared, you were twenty years old by then, and I was scared that if I showed myself; if I got to know you in the flesh, that I would fall.” Cas looks down at the gravel, shuffling his feet around.

Part of Dean had known, he thinks, he had always wondered… there had been too many close calls, times when he was sure he’d be seeing his last glimpse of light. Too many times he had felt the crushing weight of a well-placed hit and lived to see the next day. He’s always been lucky, quick to heal, hardly ever sick, but he realises now with a calming sensation that he’s always had someone looking out for him even when he thought he was alone. The thought should scare him, but it doesn’t.

And then Cas is gone, with a rustle of wings, he leaves as quickly as he came. Dean is left alone, to puzzle the secrets of the universe from the top of a car’s bonnet in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He sips his beer a few more times, looking up at the stars and wondering if Cas is watching him from wherever he is. Dean sends up a silent thought, a prayer to the angel, _thank you_ , he hopes Cas hears him and that the thought conveys everything he means to say. There is so much locked up inside him, so much that his brain can’t deal with at the moment. It’s going to take much more brooding on car bonnets before he can come to terms with everything that’s spinning around in his brain.


	5. Bessemer, AL. (1995)

Dean is sixteen the first time he notices a boy. He’s also in Bessemer, Alabama, which is probably not the best place to notice a boy. It’s 1995, and the summer vacations have just started, meaning that both he and Sam are out of school. Dad is MIA again, gone off on a hunt about three days ago which means Dean can take a break for once in his life. Their motel also has a slightly gross looking pool. But Dean doesn’t care about a little mould, it’s too hot to stay inside with the AC on the fritz. And there’s only so much Scooby Doo a 16-year-old can watch before going insane. He’s sick of lying on his bed in a pool of sweat. 

“C’ mon Sammy,” Dean slaps his brother’s leg, “we’re goin’ for a swim.” 

There’s a guy by the pool, finishing a cigarette which he stubs out on the edge, not caring that the ash drops in the water. He has blond hair, grown out like Brad Pitt’s. And well, Dean has eyes. He can tell that this guy is hot. Suddenly Dean feels all awkward in his old faded swim trunks (he’d bought them from Walmart two years ago, and they’re definitely tight). The guy looks up as they approach, he smiles at Sam. And, fuck, he looks Dean up and down a few times, with eyes that are a honey kind of brown. Dean is definitely panicking now. 

“‘Sup,” the guy nods, his accent is Californian, it must be. The perfect kind of douchey accent Dean would normally stay miles away from. “I’m Nick.” 

“Dean,” is all Dean can spit out. “This is my brother, Sam.” 

“You’re not from round here?” Nick asks, grinning as Sam canon balls into the water. 

“Nah, our dad is workin’ on a job in the area,” Dean sits down a little way from Nick, swinging his legs into the pool. The water is cool around his feet and ankles, and he can’t help but smile a little. “What ‘bout you?” He gestures vaguely at Nick, careful not to look at him too much. The panic was definitely rising now, what had been a brief sort of worry was starting to take form in Dean’s head. He thinks this guy is hot. He likes this boy like he likes girls. But he isn’t supposed to. Dean Winchester doesn’t like boys. Dean Winchester likes girls and only girls. 

“My parents are dragging my sister and me to see our aunt in Auburn,” Nick shrugs, splashing the water about with his legs. “They want me to apply to the college there. They think this visit will be good for me or something.” 

“Nice,” Dean grimaces. “So you’re a junior then?” 

“Oh yeah,” Nick nods. “you?”

“Uh, same,” Dean forgets to mention the fact that he’s likely not going to go back to school. 

“Your dad making you apply to schools then?” Nick asks. 

“Nah, he knows ‘m not clever enough for that. Sammy’s the smart one outta us two,” Dean laughs, glad for an excuse to turn the subject away from himself. 

“Huh,” is all Nick says, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and sticking one between his teeth. After lightning the thing, he leans his back and takes a long drag, blowing the smoke out in the wind. Dean watches him, cast golden in the light of the sun beating down upon them, and for a moment Dean isn’t himself. For few a golden, shining seconds Dean is just an average sixteen-year-old. He wishes he could pretend for a few more minutes, but Sam’s tugging on his leg and grinning, and then Dean is suddenly back in his body. 

“I got some homework to do, some books I’m supposed to read,” Sam says, “in case we’re still here in August.” 

“Alright,” Dean waves him off, “just stay in the room okay?”

“Sure, Dean,” Sam smiles, looking at him with kind eyes. Dean is sure the kid is far too perceptive for his own good. He makes a mental note to never speak to Sam about this. 

Dean’s not really sure what else he and Nick talk about, but the afternoon turns very quickly into evening. They’re still by the pool talking when the sun makes a last effort to stay above the horizon. Somehow, they’ve migrated closer to each other, and now Dean is pretty sure he can feel Nick’s shoulder brush against his. Nick is laughing at something Dean’s said, and Dean is damn captivated by this boy, he can’t even remember what he’s said. The way Nick comes alive when he laughs is crazy, his face lights up, and he looks like he’s shrouded with something that’s not quite human. It doesn’t make Dean feel like ganking him though, which is new. 

“Come back to my room, my parents let me bring my SNES,” Nick’s eyes flicker down to Dean’s lips. 

A few things run through Dean’s brain. Panic is definitely a large part of what he’s feeling. But he refuses to be lead by that. Suddenly all he can think about, all he can feel, is want. Dean so rarely takes what he wants. There’ve been many times where he’s had to give up on what he wants, and he doesn’t want this moment to be one of them. He’s been arrested, he’s been beaten, he’s been raising his little brother since he was four years old and now, all Dean wants to do is kiss this boy. He’s not sure what exactly is wrong with that. 

“Dean?” Nick touches him on the shoulder, Dean almost thinks that the heat of his touch is going to leave a handprint burned into his skin there. “We can just play Super Mario if that’s what you wanna do.” That’s not all Dean wants to do, but he nods and gets up anyway, throwing the t-shirt he brought with him over his shoulder. 

It ends with Nick kissing him. He’s just won a game of Mario Kart when it happens. Dean’s really not sure which one he’s happier with. He’s grinning into the kiss now, with the music from Rainbow Road playing in the background and Nick’s lips on his own, Dean’s not sure life could ever get better. No matter that they’re stuck in a shitty motel, no matter that Dean’s dad would probably kill him if he could see his son now. None of it matters, because Nick’s lips are soft and warm, and Nick’s thumb is stroking across Dean’s cheekbone, and honestly, Dean has never felt more wanted. 

They’re not in Bessemer until August. They leave a day later. Dad’s killed whatever it was that was taking kids. And Dean is back to being the perfect soldier. Not before he sneaks back into Nick’s room though. 

“You’re leaving?” Nick’s playing some game he didn’t show Dean. It looks like it has angels in it. 

“Yeah,” Dean nods, he’s leaning up against the door. “Don’t have long, dad’ll want me back in a few.”

“Yeah,” Nick grins, pressing Dean back into the wood, he kisses Dean once. Twice. Three times more. “You got an email?” Nick asks, producing a ballpoint pen from somewhere in the depths of his cargo shorts. 

Dean smiles, running his hands through Nick’s hair with one side as he writes his email down on Nick’s arm with the other. They kiss again. All the guilt Dean feel’s for leaving so soon poured into the kiss. Though he knows that nothing could get serious, he still feels for this boy with golden hair. 

“I hope you get into Auburn,” Dean whispers against Nick’s lips. 

“I hope your dad stops being an ass,” Nick laughs, “keep in touch, Dean, who knows maybe your dad’s business will bring you to Auburn when I’m there.” 

“Yeah,” Dean nods, though he hopes nothing ever makes him go to Auburn.


	6. Sioux Falls, SD. (1996).

“Dean,” Sam says hovering in the doorway to the small study area in Bobby’s house. 

“What?” Dean grunts, not bothering to look up from the computer. (Bobby bought it for Sam, but Dean has temporarily stolen it). “If there’s something wrong, you can tell me, you know.” Sam gets it out in one quick sentence. 

“F-“ Dean stops himself from telling his brother to fuck off. “Yeah, Sammy, I know.” 

“It’s just… I saw you,” Sam blurts, his eyes going wide as he slaps a hand over his mouth. 

“Well, good to know your eyes work, Sammy,” Dean raises an eyebrow. 

“No,” Sam sighs, shoulders slumping, “I saw you with that boy last summer.” 

“Oh,” Dean says, it’s the only thing he can think of to say. He’s not sure he cares. Sam knows pretty much everything else about him, no matter how great or how bad. 

“I don’t care,” Sam tells him, getting this solemn look on his face, too serious for a boy of thirteen. 

“Right.” Dean nods. 

“And I’m not gonna tell Dad either,” Sam smiles a little. 

“Good.” Dean can only manage single syllables now because his brain is too focussed on how much it doesn’t want to be having this conversation. 

Sam’s hugging him before Dean can stop him, though Dean’s not sure he minds this hug. Most of the time they’re too much. Too many sensations for him to handle, hugging brings up too many feelings, but this time. This time, Dean sinks into it. Letting the feelings wash over him. He’s not sure how he landed a little brother this awesome, he can’t fathom what he did to deserve it, but he sure is grateful for it. And he’s pretty sure Sam will pretend not to notice the kiss Dean drops onto the top of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comment, let me know how I'm doing... this is the first time I've written for the SPN fandom in like six (I think) years so just a little assurance would be nice... or a kudos? Idk... just... please?


	7. Lebanon, KA. (2013).

He’s setting up his room in the bunker, when he finds it, in the box that he keeps the more embarrassing things in. A polaroid, taken nearly twenty years ago, of a boy with gold hair hanging down around his face, like Brad Pitt. Dean stops. The world rocking around him into a standstill. His whole awareness zeroes in on this picture. Slowly, shakily he runs his fingertip down the boy’s face. Dean remembers the way Nick felt, the way he had been awakened to a part of him he’d never known existed. They’d stayed in touch. For a few years at least. Then Dean’s John had found the emails, and Dean remembers the shouting that had followed. John had kicked him out of the motel, had given him a case on the other side of the country and had told him to stay away until he was ‘in his right mind’. 

He staggers to the bed, thinking. Dean doesn’t even know what happened to Nick after the last time they saw each other, all he has is an old email. Somehow, he thinks, it would be wrong to dredge up the past again. He’s quite content to let Nick live in his memories. Perhaps, it would be too painful to see what adulthood had done to the boy with gold hair. His thoughts drift. It has been years since he’s thought of men. Years. He’d gone back to John, and more importantly, to Sam and had tried not to look at other boys again. It has become a habit. Even when John Winchester is long dead, it is a habit of Dean’s to not look. To turn his head in the other direction. He wonders what Nick would think of him now. Whether he’d be disgusted. Dean’s not sure he wants to know. 

“Hello, Dean,” there’s a knock at the door, Cas comes in, looking at little sheepish. 

“Cas,” Dean nods, not bothering to look up from the photo. 

“Oh.” Cas says, and he sounds so painfully human that Dean almost forgets he isn’t, “you probably want personal space.” 

“It’s okay, Cas,” Dean gestures to the chair, “what’s up?” 

“I wanted-“ Cas stops himself, “I wanted to make sure that you were okay.” 

“I’m peachy, Cas, thanks,” Dean snorts, he stuffs the photo into his bedside cabinet drawer. 

“Sometimes, you think so loudly, and I know you asked me to stay out of your head, but sometimes you just think so loudly that I cannot help but hear…” He trails off, shifting around in the chair. Dean wonders when things became so awkward between them. He wonders why they have to dance around each other. 

“I…” Dean realises that Cas is referring to his trip down memory lane, “You heard that.” 

“I did,” Cas confirms, even though Dean never asked a question. 

“Ah,” Dean nods, jerking his head up a little, “I guess that cat’s out the bag. Surprise.” Dean grins, feeling a little weight off his shoulders. 

“What’s the surprise?” Cas asks, tilting his head, and squinting his eyes. “I don’t understand.” 

“Oh uh,” it’s Dean’s turn to be confused now because he’s pretty sure he’s been hiding this fact about himself since he was sixteen. “It’s just… you know…” 

“I do not consider your attraction to men a surprise Dean,” Cas smiles, softly, the barest upturning of the corners of his mouth. Dean tries to stop himself from staring. “I have been watching over you since you were young. I know every aspect of what makes you, you. Remember I rebuilt you from the ground up.” 

“Oh,” Dean mumbles, scratching the back of his head, “well… that’s still a thing, I still… I. Sometimes, you know, not much since Dad but…” he flails his arms around a bit, thinking that that will make things clearer. “I… when things got hard you know… I did some stuff, Cas, some shit I’m really not proud of.”

“I know,” Cas nods, “I don’t care.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Maybe leave a comment/kudos?


	8. Auburn, AL. (1999).

Dean sits in an internet café, he’s typing out a quick email to Nick, hoping that Nick’s not in class, hoping that Nick checks his email. If everything goes right, Dean might have a place to sleep for the next few days. If not, then who knows what he’s going to do. He’s going to have to use the last of his money to buy himself more time at the computer, he can probably eek another hour or two out of the crumpled ones he has. His coke is now seriously watered down because he’s let it sit for too long, and he’s pretty sure that a creepy guy is watching him from the other corner of the room. Dean can’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief when the email notification chimes. 

Dean, Bro! 

Can’t believe you’re in Auburn, come chill with me! ;-) I’ll be home at 5.

266 Mell Street.   
I’ll wait outside

Nick didn’t bother singing off the email, Dean smiles, and sags with relief. He might have somewhere to sleep tonight. He hopes Nick is attracted to him still. Dean shifts, before he gets up and leaves the café, after signing out of the computer. Dean doesn’t really know where he’s heading, it’ll probably be a Waffle House because he knows that he can order three coffees, and sit in there for hours. 

The reason Dean likes Waffle House so much is that no matter where he is, he can always count of Waffle House to look like Waffle House. He gets the corned beef hash, which is the same thing he always gets along with a black coffee. Then, he just sits and soaks up the linoleum covered atmosphere. It’s just after three in the afternoon, and hash soaks up the last of his funds, but Dean can’t really bring himself to care as he eats the oily fried potato and beef that gets set down in front of him by a waitress. 

“Thank you, uh, Linda,” Dean nods as she brings around the coffee pot over to him and fills the slightly grubby mug with it. 

“No problem,” Linda smiles, “you let me know if you need anythin’ else, sugar.” 

There are many great things about Waffle House, but the free refills and the corned beef hash are the best. A young family walks in, a kid about ten years younger than Dean drags his younger brother to a booth. Dean watches them, thinking about Sam, about his Dad. Then he shakes his head, turning back to his plate of food, which was too expensive for him to let it go cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I can't believe I'm back in the SPN fandom like nearly six whole years after I left it...


End file.
